New piracy technique on PS4 in Brazil confirmed to be real, Sony might take legal action

We’ve revealed a few weeks ago that some electronic stores in Brazil were advertising a way to copy pirate video games onto your PS4 for a fee. Although the technique was not described in details (these stores wanted, after all, to make a profit out of the scheme, not share it for everyone to get it for free, or for Sony to patch it), we’ve been in touch with several members of the hacking scene, as well as customers of these stores, who have all confirmed the existence of the “hack”.

PS4 Hack for piracy confirmed to be real

Yesterday, journalists at UOL Jogos, a trusted site in Brazil, have confirmed that the hack is real, as they have verified it themselves on a test console (original article, in Portuguese, can be found here). It needs to be emphasized that this is not the well known “account sharing” trick, but a new kind of hack.

Small electronics store in some streets of Sao Paulo will charge from R$ 300 to R$ 400 (about $100 to $150) in order to install 10 pirated games on your console. The UOL journalists have confirmed the hack to work on their own console.

The process, as described by Brazilian modchip stores, is close to what we have explained before: a Dump of a “legit” console with a dozen games on it is performed, and copied to the target console. In addition to a copy of the hard drive, it is safe to assume a dump of the NAND/BIOS is performed as well. It seems the dump is performed with the help of a regular raspberry pi, as this had been implied the first time we uncovered this story.

The process described on UOL is extremely similar to what has been described on the scene, and as we reported here. Activate a PS4 for a given account, make a full copy of its state/NAND, deactivate it, then copy the backed-up NAND again. UOL mentions however that in their experiment, their console ended up with 2 registered accounts, which are part of the cloning process, and required for the games to work.

A new way to pirate PS4 games, a lucrative business

Other ways have existed for pirates in the past: Sony lets people activate several consoles on the same account, so some people abuse that system by sharing accounts with their friends. This piracy technique remains limited as you can only share an account with a limited number of consoles. This new technique, however, has virtually no limit to how many PS4s could replicate the games. As such, this is a very lucrative business for these electronics shop, who make close to 100% profit on this technique.

These shops in Brazil charge about $100 to install 10 games. These games would cost almost $600 normally. This is a great deal for both the client and the seller. To get more games, one has to come back to the store and pay roughly $15 for each additional game. UOL mention that with 10 games of the current generation, your PS4 hard drive is pretty much full anyway, so you’ll have to erase a few ones to add new ones.

The article on UOL mentions that the hack initially originated on a Russian site. Given what I’ve been told so far though, it could literally have originated from anywhere, as it is heavily inspired from a similar technique on the PS3 that is widely known. It could be one of those “not so secret” secrets of the scene.

As we’ve discussed before, this is not really what could be considered as a PS4 Jailbreak, and of minimal interest from a homebrew perspective. It is still interesting however, from my point of view, to confirm once again that a system is as secure as its weakest link. Although no encryption is broken here, pirates are still able to find their way, while us “homebrewers” are left in the cold.

Sony already taking legal action in Brazil

Sony are not totally ignoring the issue of piracy in Brazil. It seems they are aware of the “account sharing” technique (and how some stores are monetizing it) and already sending cease and desist notices about that. It is safe to assume they will at least do the same for this new piracy technique, and will probably be looking into ways to patch the hack. As a reminder, people on the PS4 hacking scene have told us that the technique they knew about has been patched on 2.51, so it seems the technique used by Brazilian stores is slightly different from that.

As always, we will be keeping our PS4 Jailbreak page up to date with the latest PS4 Jailbreak news, so you can be aware as soon as a valid technique exists that doesn’t solely rely on the greed of a few pirates.

Thanks to everyone who pointed out the UOL Jogos article, too many of you guys to give proper credit at this point!

Im from Brazil (sorry for my english). I have a Xbox One, PS3, Ps2, PSVita, and maybe in december 2015 i will buy my PS4, but u guys have to know something. The PS4 here official is about $1.400,00…. yes…1.400 dollars… a videogame that anyone in the world will buy for $350 or less, we need to spend $1.400 in oficial market from Sony. A single game that cost $59,99 here in Brazil is $90 or more…. think with me…. a Braziian won for month something about $600 in his job… well…so we need to work 3 months to buy a PS4…. we need to spend almost 20% of our salary to buy a single game…. how can u say that this is fair??? I dont like Piracy, i will never use this on my consoles, but i cant blame anyone who choose to use here in Brazil.

Amen brother! I agree with you! It’s unfair to charge that much. But then again, I don’t like giving people money for piracy. I’m not sure how importation works in Brazil. Maybe you’d have to pay a lot of tax to import a game, but you gotta do what you gotta do. You know… lol

Im buying digital games, that was the way i find to buy games for a good price. I cant stop playing, but i dont have a lot of money to spend on games.

Im buying in LIVE EUA or PSN EUA for about 3 years. I already try to import…. some years ago.

A game that cost $30,00 (that year U$1,00 = R$ 2,00 , só here in Brazil = R$ 60,00, two times the EUA price, but´s ok its something fair)… but when the game arrived here the Federal Government block the game, so i need to pay a federal improtation taxes…. was R$ 20 (about $10) for Federal Governament and more R$ 30 (about U$15) for Stadual Governament, so in the end a game that i bought for $30 in Starland with free ship, arrived here for 30+15+10 = U$55 (in that year, something about R$ 110,00). Look… i have to pay more than 50% of taxes. This isnt fair…and that´s the reason that i dont blame anyone who choose this black market.

There is a new way of install a game to a PS4 console, now they can have a non verify phantom account, so, there is not user related to it and it has a true own hash code, this mean that the hackers in Santa Ifigenia Sao Paulo or in Russia have already put their hands on the cypher code for nand/bios PATCH, this is not something easy and it is impossible to Sony to PATCH it, as they can really DOWNGRADE anytime they want the BIOS. Other confirmed rumor is that they can CLONE PS4 bios in full and write to a new EMPTY FLASH, so they can get any PS4 console and make dozens of it. Also they can uncypher the BIOS/NAND and add users and hashes codes to it, this mean SONY cant invade the console to check it, so, it can be a simple, INSTALL A NEW USER, add games to the console, and REMOVE THE USER FROM THE CONSOLE, remove the PRIMARY status from SONY WEBSITE, than later add the USER AGAIN TO CONSOLE, so, this is a great deal like in the PS3 account share. What this mean? Simple, they NEED THE HASH CODE FOR A TRUE CRYPT CYPHER WORK, so, the GAME must be run on a ORIGINAL GAME FROM PSN STORE AND HAVE THE USER/GAME HASH CODE! Today 14/05/2015 they have about 23 games on Santa Ifigenia for sale for about U$ 200.00, all the LATEST GAMES RELEASE!!!

does this mean we have to get a ps4 with the games actually purchased then clone it or could we get games from the internet as is ps3 right now? the whole game share exploit is confusing to me. thanks for any reply.

The hacking aspect of the story is pretty cool. I dont really support the actual piracy though. This isn’t really the “grey” piracy of someone making some software and puts it on the vita without giving licencing fees to Sony. This is actually hurting the peeps who made the gave software which I say is a bad thing.

please confirm again, Brazillian said ‘have to format the HDD PS4, then copy games’ so how to run PS4 system without Firmware Official ? also Confirm it again, Can We play Online with the lastest Official Firmware ?

[…] about ludicrous PS4 launch day prices, this post involves how Brazilian pirates have found a way to effectively hack PS4’s, giving way to a shady business, and a wealth of super cheap gaming for the Brazilian […]

[…] USD you can have ten pirated games installed on your PS4. This information popped up in a recent article on wololol.net, who reported on rumors that the PS4 had been hacked in Brazil weeks ago. The […]

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